


Delicate, Petite & Other Things I’ll Never Be

by TheDisc (TheDisco)



Series: Coming of Age [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Pre-Canon, Trans Male Character, both hosea and arthur are trans, if tormenting your teenage son were a sport hosea and dutch would be atheletes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 01:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDisco/pseuds/TheDisc
Summary: Arthur rolled his eyes. “You know, I think you’s just jealous ‘cause you can’t grow a beard, Hosea, so you’re tryin’ to take the joy outta mine.”Dutch didn’t even try to hide his laughter. His voice cracked with it as he knocked Hosea’s knee.“I can’t tell you what’s funnier— the fact that he’s right, or that he thinks that thing’s a beard.”(Hosea and Dutch teach Arthur how to shave.)





	Delicate, Petite & Other Things I’ll Never Be

**Author's Note:**

> History: handheld cameras weren’t invented until 1888. HRT wasn’t even isolated until the 1930s  
> Me: (writing this anyway) hee hee fun cowboys :)
> 
> also anyone else think abt that scar on arthur's chin ?
> 
> [Delicate, Petite & Other Things I’ll Never Be - Against Me! ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCoqjFbjxns)

**1880**

The sun was already well above the tree-line when Arthur came stumbling out of his tent. Sat next to the smoldering remains of their fire, Hosea glanced up from the pages of his newspaper and knocked Dutch’s knee to catch his attention.

“Would you look at that. It’s finally awake.”

Dutch looked up from his own book to watch Arthur stumble his way across the campground. He scratched the back of his messy bed hair and made no attempt to catch his sagging long johns.

“Well, good morning, mister Morgan!” Dutch called. He had a shit-eating grin as he balanced his tin coffee cup on his opposite knee. “I hope you and that rat on your lip slept well.”

Arthur grumbled as he slunk by. He was about seventeen, eighteen now and somehow still growing taller by the day; a running joke around camp was that they’d have to keep a close eye on him, lest someone try to track him and sell him as a bigfoot curiosity. Arthur might not have found the jokes funny outwardly, but Hosea could only imagine he was tickled deep down with his changing body. Puberty was a tough thing to go through once, and much less a second time, though it was more rewarding, Hosea thought.

Bearing that in mind, Hosea rustled the page of his newspaper and said to Dutch, “Maybe we shouldn’t tease him so badly.”

Arthur staggered to an old barrel laying around. It had partially filled with rain overnight, so he stuck his face down into it and splashed himself. Immediately, he made a surprised, sputtering noise.

“Augh, fuck!”

Dutch snorted. He turned his lopsided grin to Hosea. “He just makes it so easy sometimes.”

Dutch then leaned back in his chair and called out, “It is early April, mister Morgan. Water tends to be very cold when it’s been sitting out all night.”

“If you got up earlier, you could have had a nice warm bath,” Hosea tossed in. He glanced to the side and shared a grin with Dutch.

Arthur, shivering and grumbling unpleasantries, continued to splash in the barrel; when he was done, he staggered his way towards the fire pit. Arthur came to stand at Dutch’s side, letting the weak warmth wash over him. He cleared his throat and tugged up the bottom of his undershirt to wipe his face. A thickening trail of hair lead up from the band of his long johns to his navel.

Dutch pursed his lips in a smirk, then reached out and slapped Arthur’s belly.

“Hurry up and get dressed, we’ve got business in town today. And do something about that mange on your face.”

Arthur jolted immediately. He gave both Dutch and Hosea a dirty look when Hosea choked back a laugh.

“What do you mean by that?” Arthur asked. His voice was deep, and raspy.

“I mean,” Dutch reiterated. “Do something about that _awful_ thing on your lip, because we are gentlemen from Chicago today, looking to sell some stocks. Our friend here, Viktor Barry—” Dutch waved his coffee cup towards Hosea for emphasis, “—knows some big men on the inside of some very successful companies that are about to hit the big time, so the going’s gonna get good.”

Dutch sat himself up straight and cockily adjusted his waistcoat. “And while Hosea does that, you and I are going to clean out everything we can find at the mayor’s office. Because my sources tell me that he is proper scum.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Arthur grumbled. He readjusted his clothes and warmed his hands instead by the fire. “But what does this have to do with my beard?”

“What’s wrong is that it ain’t a beard,” Dutch laughed. “We are men of high society, _Tacitus_ , and men of high society don’t walk around looking like they’ve got pubes stuck to their chin.”

“Be nice, now,” Hosea cut in. “He’s spent a long while working on those whiskers.”

“Exactly.” Arthur agreed.

Hosea turned his eyes back to his paper. “Regardless, you still need to shave, Arthur.”

Arthur’s head snapped back towards them both. Dutch snickered.

“What? How come?”

Hosea glanced up and looked over Arthur. His facial hair was patchy, dark in some places to match his hair and lighter in others where it was still growing in. Mostly, it was across his upper lip and spread around his chin. In looking at it, one could only hope that it would grow in proper later.

“Because it isn’t very becoming of you right now. And I understand that you are awful proud of your progress, but you will have fifty, sixty years more to grow as many beards as you like. If we’re going to sell the picture of high society today...”

Hosea gave Arthur another hard once-over. Arthur self-consciously straightened his back and his shoulders.

“...You can’t look like you’ve just wandered out of the woods.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. He brushed his fingers through his hair and worked the knots out of it. “You know, I think you’s just jealous ‘cause you can’t grow a beard, Hosea, so you’re tryin’ to take the joy outta mine.”

Dutch didn’t even try to hide his laughter. His voice cracked with it as he knocked Hosea’s knee.

“I can’t tell you what’s funnier— the fact that he’s right, or that he thinks that thing’s a beard.”

“Give him a wallop for me, will ya?” Hosea said.

“Oh, with pleasure.”

Before Arthur could protest, Dutch swung his hand out to smack Arthur’s belly again. Arthur skipped to the side, and Dutch caught his hip instead.

“Leave me alone!” Arthur grunted.

“Not until you go get cleaned up,” Dutch replied. He swatted at Arthur’s hip while the younger shifted away. “Now hop to it, son; we’re burning daylight.”

—30—

When the last of the coffee had been drunk and Arthur showed no signs of return, Hosea offered to go check on him. In passing, Hosea spoke with Bessie and Annabelle, who were quietly talking amongst themselves, but neither had seen Arthur come through to get his fresh clothes off the line. Taking that in stride, Hosea went for the boy’s tent.

Sure enough, Arthur was there. He leaned in close to the shabby mirror propped up, his face covered in shaving soap. Awkwardly, he came in at his jaw from the side with a straight razor, trying to find a proper angle to cut at, maybe.

Hosea got nervous just watching him for that moment, so he asked, “What are you trying to do? Slit your throat?”

Arthur jumped at the sudden voice. The razor slipped out of his hand and nicked his chin, before falling on the ground. He hissed, clutching his jaw, as he whipped around to look at Hosea.

“The hell’s the matter with you?” Arthur demanded. A small trickle of blood slipped over his fingers. “You can’t just... Come up behind someone like that.”

“Well, by the way you were holding that thing, I thought you were trying to get out of our errands.”

Under the foaming soap spread across his cheeks, Arthur flushed red. He plucked the razor from the ground with a grumble.

The whole shaving set had been a birthday gift from Hosea for his last birthday, since his facial hair had finally started setting in. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now Hosea was starting to wonder if he’d made the wrong choice. Something a little less hazardous might have been better suited.

Arthur took the razor over to his washing bowl and rinsed it off. He kept his eyes trained forward the whole time; even as he poised himself in front of the mirror, he focused on his own face and refused to acknowledge Hosea. Blood from his cut seeped down over his chin and mixed pink with the shaving soap.

Eventually, his eyes darted to one side. “A little privacy would be nice.”

Hosea didn’t move. He watched for a couple beats as Arthur awkwardly tried to scrape his cheek with the razor, before speaking up himself.

“You don’t know how to shave, do you?”

Arthur narrowed his eyes and gave a mean look to the mirror.

“It’s not hard. I’ll figure it out.”

Hosea stepped fully into the tent and snatched the razor out of Arthur’s hand. Arthur turned to protest, but Hosea was a little quicker. He safely flipped the razor shut, set it down on the stand, then grabbed a ratty towel to shove at Arthur’s face.

“I wasn’t even trying to make fun of you that time,” Hosea informed him. “Stop that bleeding first of all, and listen close. Going the way you was, you would have flayed yourself.”

Arthur made a face as he pressed the towel to his bleeding chin.

“Now look here,” Hosea said. He picked the razor up again and flipped it open. “Hold it like this, not like you’re about to skin an animal. You want complete control over the blade, so you don’t slip and cut yourself. Again.”

Hosea smirked. Arthur failed to see the humour in his statement.

“And what you’re going to do is work downwards from the top...” For emphasis, Hosea scraped the edge of the blade carefully down his cheekbone. “Slow and steady, careful. Which I know is hard for a blockhead like you, but please try.”

Arthur, despite looking sour and annoyed, quietly observed everything Hosea did.

Over the past year, his temper had burned out a bit; when they first brought Arthur in, he was quick to the defense and quicker to fight. Nowadays, while he still had that sharp edge to his personality and tone sometimes, he was a lot more reigned in, thankfully.

Hosea shifted his grasp on the handle to hold the razor out to Arthur. He nodded towards it.

“Give it a go, just how I showed you.”

Arthur lowered the towel from his face and exchanged it with the razor. “Thanks,” he muttered.

Turned back towards the mirror, Arthur raised the razor and worked it across his cheek, slow and unsure. Hosea watched from beside his shoulder, nodding all the while.

“There you go. So easy, even an oaf lacking in grace like yourself can do it.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Hosea.”

The cut on Arthur’s chin slowed to a dribble. A little bit of blood still trickled down, curling under Arthur’s chin and to his neck.

Hosea smirked. He licked his thumb, then wiped it across the cut.

Arthur winced and jerked away.

“Gross, Hosea!”

Hosea laughed at Arthur’s reaction as he drew back.

“I don’t know how you managed it, but that’s a fairly clean cut; it might even leave a scar. How lucky for you.”

Arthur took half a step away from Hosea, giving him a dirty look out of the corner of his eye. He continued to shave his cheeks, slowly becoming more confident in his movements. When Arthur got close to his jawline, Hosea made an upwards sweeping motion under his own jaw.

“Like this, when you get to it.” Hosea said. “Careful going over your chins.”

Arthur’s lips twitched into an unwilling smile. He did as told and shifted his tactics to scrape up under his jaw.

Hosea watched his movements carefully. If nothing else, Arthur was a quick learner, so he knew there would be nothing to worry about. Hosea’s eyes slid around the mirror to look over Arthur’s shoulder when Dutch poked his head in through the tent door.

“What’s taking so long?” He asked.

“We’re teaching Artie here to shave,” Hosea filled him in. Arthur’s cheeks flushed, and he cleared his throat. “So far so good. Aside from one minor injury.”

Dutch nodded knowingly. He took on a grin. “Wouldn’t be Arthur if there wasn’t at least that.”

Dutch invited himself inside more. Arthur continued to scrape away his whiskers, his eyes following Dutch in the mirror as he came around to his right side.

“...How far down do I go?” Arthur asked, his voice deep and soft.

“To your Adam’s apple,” Dutch offered, as he laid a heavy hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

“He hasn’t got one,” Hosea corrected him.

“Oh, well.” Dutch poked his finger into the middle of Arthur’s throat. “To here.”

Arthur nodded a little. Despite how embarrassing it was to have them poking, prodding, and quipping at him, it was nice to have the guidance. Kind of.

“Isn’t this something?” Dutch eventually said. “What a fine, tender moment between us all.”

Hosea pinched Arthur’s cheek. “Little Arthur’s all grown up now.”

Hosea and Dutch shared a laugh. Red to his ears, Arthur swatted at them both.

“Alright, alright, I think I’ve got a handle on this. Y’all can leave now.”

“I think we’ve embarrassed him, Dutch.”

Dutch gave a raspy laugh. “I think you’re right.”

After a quick pause, Dutch added, “We ought to get Annabelle to bring her camera over and snap a few pictures.” Arthur flushed, and Hosea laughed while Dutch went for the tent door, leaned out, and hollered, “Annabelle! Get over here!”

This, Arthur thought, was what made a family; the ability to so quickly and deeply embarrass the youngest party.

But as Annabelle joined them in his tent, soon followed by Bessie and Susan, too, all of them talking and joking and laughing, Arthur thought that, well…

It wasn’t so bad.


End file.
